Following their manufacture, bricks are conventionally deposited in layers on a pallet or on a conveyor for transport or further processing. The bricks are layered in a relatively ordinate manner, usually in rows oriented in a same direction within a same layer, but oriented in perpendicular directions from one layer to the next or every two or more rows for stability purposes. The package brick arrangement coming out of the oven is often referred to as “bong” or “hack”.
The positioning of bricks conventionally includes gaps that are introduced during the brick manufacturing processes (setting machine, firing, burning, drying). The bricks positioning during and following their production is done with a setting machine creating gaps and interlocks. Throughout the handling, firing and drying processes, the bricks change shapes, moves, sometime breaks and their position therefore becomes imprecise. Such imprecision has been found to cause mispositioning or mishandling thereof in their subsequent use, resulting in frequent crumbling of bongs and/or resulting breakage of bricks and a non-negligible rejection rate. It also results in a reduced productivity by increasing manual packaging cycle time.
Furthermore, the gaps within conventional piles of bricks result in an additional and unnecessary volume for the pile, which furthermore cannot be packaged conventionally (strapped or wrapped), which increases the shipping costs.